Oil spills and releases of other water-borne pollutants can potentially result in grave environmental damage and health concerns. To help mitigate the adverse consequences of aquatic spills, oil-containment booms are used to isolate aquatic spills so that water-borne pollutants can be removed from the water in a pickup and skimming operation. Booms ordinarily include a series of water-permeable, oil-impermeable bands that are interconnected by buoyant spars.
To effectively isolate an oil spill, a boom must form a continuous wall that encircles the oil spill. Any discontinuity in the wall of the boom will destroy or compromise the booms ability to isolate an oil spill. In particular, the failure of a band spar connection will result in a gap in the boom that allows oil contained within the boom to escape. Accordingly, band-spar connections for connecting bands together have proven to be a critical feature in the construction and effectiveness of booms. For a boom to effectively isolate an oil spill, the band-spar connection must be secure enough to withstand the stresses placed against the boom by water and water-borne matter moving through and against the boom at speeds up to 4 knots per hour.
In addition, to the ability to withstand stresses placed against a boom, a band-spar connection should enable a user to easily detach and attach a band to a spar while the boom is deployed. During the isolation of an oil spill, it is not unusual for a band of the boom to become damaged. The band-spar connection should allow for easy detachment of the damaged band from the connecting spars and then attachment of a replacement band to the boom. Such a repair must be capable of being performed easily and quickly so that there is no serious interruption in the operation of the boom. Finally, a bandspar connection for a boom should not require a complicated design of the band or spar
Several different prior art booms are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,407, issued Nov. 25, 1975; U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,261, issued Apr. 7, 1992; U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,262, issued Apr. 7, 1992; U.S. Pat. No. 4,211,659, issued Jul. 8, 1980; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,526, issued Sep. 11, 1973. These prior art booms do not disclose an effective and practical design for a band-spar connection that is easily detachable and that is sufficiently secure to withstand large stresses placed against the boom. For example, tests and actual use of the boom disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,407, issued Nov. 25, 1975, have shown that the disclosed bandspar connections will occasionally fail when large stresses are placed on the boom.